Why are some people so rude about people still living with their parents past the age of 20?

[Tummmmm]

Is this not normal in some areas?
In my area, this is completely normal. Most of my friends are mid 20s and still live at home with their parents.
The only people I know who have managed to move out are those who have had children or those in a couple who are renting together.

My boyfriend and I are 26 and living with our parents to save for a deposit. Our parents are both happy with this situation and we're not "lazy", 'immature" ect. I help around the house, look after my sisters and he does the same.

We are hoping to have the deposit sorted by next year.

But i'd never look my nose down at someone living at home with parents. Many of my friends are just saving up for a housing deposit.

I think many people forget that moving out is not as cheap or easy as it was years and years ago.
My parents had moved out by 17 but they understand that these days it's not so straightforward.

I moved back in with my parents for 3 years after uni. After 3 years of living in shitty flat shares it felt great! I had some particularly disgusting housemates though.

I paid them a reasonable amount of rent, bought a cheap car and was able to start saving for a deposit. Bought my flat at 27.

I had lots of friends who just buggered about in that period though, going travelling spending on clothes and nights out. They all ended up getting parental help for deposits or are still renting in their 30s.

I only know one still at home though, everyone else moved on eventually

The only people I've ever heard sneering at it are ones who never had to save for deposits.

The job market for young people round here has changed so much. When DH and I were younger there was a guaranteed job at a tourist attraction for pretty much every young person locally. Everyone counted the day until they were 14 and could get a Saturday job (and cheap entry on your days off in the holidays). In the summer the place was full of uni students and school age teens doing various jobs.

Last year half of the jobs were done by proper adults (for want of a better phrase). A good number of them in their 60s.

So far fewer local kids are leaving school with savings from having worked there. Which means they've less of a buffer when they go to college or uni and that has a knock on effect.

I also think it's more important how people live with their parents rather than why. An 18-year-old who is utterly babied and mollycoddled is a bigger issue, imo, than someone in their late 20s who lives their own life, but just happens to live with their parents.

wonder how many of the parents with 20 or 30 year olds still living at home are secretly wishing they'd grow up and move on?

Judging from this thread not many, it's been stated many times the kids are welcome to stay. You can still be grown up and live at home 🤷‍♂️

DD will always be welcome here with me but I must admit that I will be disappointed if she is not showing signs of moving on by mid 20s and whilst there is room for her, but for a romantic partner. I wouldn't like that. But then I don't have a big house and adding another adult to the home would change the dynamics too much.

I wonder at the ages of some of the posters here.... are your children still very young? Do you have room in your home for adult offspring and partners to stay with you until their 30s and more?

In Mumsnetland everyone goes to a RG uni, then starts their amazing career whilst renting and has bought a house by age 25

That made me laugh as it’s exactly what I did. (Good career, not sure about amazing )

I think it depends on the reason for the DC staying at home. Hand on heart I do consider it part of my job as a parent to prepare my children to go out and make their way in the world and not keep them at home with me. I would be very surprised if both DC were still at home past mid 20s. We will be in the enviable position of being able to help with flat-buying and I understand that not everyone can do that. Next door’s son is still at home and he’s 23 and showing no signs of shipping out and I do find that a bit weird. But times are different now and it’s very hard to get on the housing ladder 🤷‍♀️

I’d be disappointed for them if they were still living with me at 30, that’s a total failure to launch.

DNiece (32, working, average income) moved in ŵith DSis around 2 years ago for a short period. She says she's saving up for a house but has been on several expensive holidays and refuses to discuss plans, timescales or anything relating to her personal life or movements with DSis, and takes up 3 rooms with her furniture and possessions plus Home working.

I think a lot less of her and I know my sister is unhappy with the situation because she tells me so. I wouldn't generalise - Dnephew also lived at home for an extended period but he had fewer options and treated his Mum as family, not a landlady.

Nowadays, when housing costs are so much higher than a few decades ago, I’d think it quite normal - as long as they all get on well. It’s a chance to save, but I still think they should pay something, maybe half what they’d pay just in rent. If parents don’t need the money, they can save it for them.

In a former era (mine!) there was often such a massive generation gap, you were almost on different planets. Many of us couldn’t wait to move out, even if it was to a grotty bedsit with a shared bathroom and other people’s pubes in the bath, or to an equally grotty flatshare with inadequate heating and decor/plumbing out of the ark.

I think one of the things that needs to happen as well is that parents have to adjust their expectations

DH's Aunt has damaged her relationship with two of his cousins by being utterly unrealistic. She expected the lad to move out at 18 for uni and stay moved out - which he did and has always rented. Yet she's now openly disappointed that he's "still" renting at 27. Well yes, he's had to pay expensive rent since he left home so obviously it's going to take him longer to save a deposit. She's disappointed in her daughter because she has moved away. Well, again yes, you expected her to move out and stay moved out at 18, and to buy in her early 20's she had to move somewhere considerably cheaper than the v.v.expensive area that you brought them up in. Can't have it all ways.

@Camomila

Sounds like Italy too Schrodinger, there's usually a nonna in the groundfloor flat, the middle generation in another flat, and the first DC to get married gets the flat left over.

Exactly. Lots of houses are like that. Many are just normal one generation, but lots have units. That's why it's nothing odd to live with parents there. It's absolutely different to 2 generations in a 3 bed semi...

I lived with my lovely late DM until I was 34 and she passed away from Cancer.

I'm 50 now and not entirely sure that I still wouldn't be if she was still alive.

We had a lovely life together and I don't nor did give a toss what anyone else thinks.

A lot of people only poke fun until that 20 something is able to buy their dream home a good 10 years before their cohort and with far less of a mortgage too. Living at home makes financial sense if the home environment is condusive enough.

Not sure you are not a “Proper” grown up if you have never moved out, sorry. Depends how you define grownup.

I work in financial services, and the number of young adults in their 20s-30s who live with their parents and know NOTHING about finances in staggering.
Don’t understand how credit works, no idea about mortgages, couldn’t tell you the price of a weekly food shop or energy prices. When listing outgoings it’s “nights out”, “holidays”, “clothing”, “beauty products” etc. Nothing “real life”, very immature.

You simply cannot learn certain life skills without living on your own and giving up the safety net of mum and dad. Budgeting, organising food/household supplies/cleaning/bills. The torture of having to deal with domestic supply companies to ensure you have electricity and internet. You don’t appreciate the pressure and responsibilities of making ends meet and looking after yourself until you’ve had to do it. Someone Still reliant on parents keeping a roof over their head, and all that goes with that, in my opinion, is usually quite naive.

It's okay for other people to think it's strange if they can't imagine it OP.

It's also okay for you to think they are judgmental and dismiss what they think!

I think it's fine. I lived with my parents well into adulthood I know many who do but I also think you haven't fully grown up if you haven't had to be responsible for your own home, own bills, food etc.

The little things like paying for your own TV and making sure there's toilet paper.

I can't help but feel that someone who went straight from living with parents to living with a partner has missed quite an important formative stage. I know lots of people will disagree but I think living on your own for a while is a really important thing to do, and that life experiences are worth a bit of house deposit money.

It depends on the circumstances. I must admit when I was in my 20s I wouldn't have dated anyone still living with their parents past the age of 24-25, it would've felt too weird, and I'd be worried they didn't know how to live independently (shop, cook, do DIY, clean, take the bins out, budget etc.). Men especially ought to learn to live alone before moving in with a partner, since statistically they do less of the chores around the house than women.

I'd like my son to move out in his late teens or early twenties with the absolute cut off being 25 but I'd never judge / be rude about other people's situations (don't care & nothing to do with me anyway).

Ds is 2 so all still ages away!

If your still at home around 20 years old, it’s okish...just. 25 and over still living with parents is seen that the adult children are unsuccessful in life as they haven’t even managed to stand in their own two feet yet. It can also be looked at that the adult children are lazy or just don’t have any drive/motivation.

Your generation is the first wave of adults still living with their parents, I’m sure this will carry on for many, many generations more. So it’s becoming seen as the reasons I have given above, as apposed to the true reasons that cost of houses/living is just not realistic anymore at the age of just 20-27.

After more generations have gone through it, it will be seen as normal, because your the first lot, people still don’t understand what the real reasons are, that’s all.

@notheragain4 my OP specifically says that my parents are happy for me to be there and they themselves would rather me save for a deposit than waste on rent. So no, i'm not self-absorbed

And a generation of early twenties are now working from a bedsit or the chaos of a house share, and will be for months to come. They'll go back eventually, maybe ?.

I left home at 18 but things are very different now. I'm 47 when I was young the average age for leaving home was about 20 now I would say it's probably 25.

It's more expensive now. When I was young you knew that when it was time to settle down you could buy a property it really was that simple. Now people have to save for years so they stay at home rather than live in house shares because it's difficult to save for a deposit when you are paying rent at market rates.

I have advised my children to come back home after uni to save to buy their own place. I envisage that they should be able to move out by about 25/26. They would be foolish not to come home and save money when the offer is there.

I don't get why there is such criticism for young adults living in the family home when we all know that it's expensive to get your own property.

@LEELULUMPKIN

I lived with my lovely late DM until I was 34 and she passed away from Cancer.

I'm 50 now and not entirely sure that I still wouldn't be if she was still alive.

We had a lovely life together and I don't nor did give a toss what anyone else thinks.

I think that's really lovey My children can live at home for as long as they like. I love having a full house

Think the thread currently just below this in Active Convos really explains why so many adults are still living with parents

Why is renting so ridiculously stupidly high???